Making progress on "Desert Daydream"

I added borders to my "Desert Daydream" quilt. Only one inch will show on the front and the rest will be wrapped around a 20x16 frame. You can see on the top where I'm adding big stitches to connect the borders with the center. 

Now I'm interrupting this post to bring you the latest Juniper update. She found her feet!!! She's such a little bundle of cuteness. I can hardly wait to visit her again.

Back to the stitching: I'm using a variegated orange pearl cotton thread. I might add some kind of stitching to the left side of the quilt by the stamped figures, but I'm not sure what that would be.

Before I started the quilt, I pulled out my favorite surface design books to get in the spirit. They're so old that I don't know if they're even still in print, but I treasure them.

I used Yvonne Porcella's "Colors Changing Hue" to learn how to paint fabric about 30 years ago. I still do it her way, using Pebeo Setacolor paints, aluminum pie plates to mix the paint, and scrunching the fabric so that it dries in interesting patterns.

Sherrill Kahn rocked my world about 20 years ago when she came out with these books about fabric painting and mixed media. She's incredibly creative and was an art teacher in public schools for 30 years. I especially like them because she uses my favorite color combos -- orange, blue, purple, gold -- and uses petroglyph inspired stamps, which she designed and sold. Her company was Impress Me Now, but it's since disappeared.

I bought some of her rubber stamps way back when and used them for the stamped petroglyph figures in my quilt. I also learned from her how to create quick and easy stamps from foam food trays, now one of my favorite techniques. And I like her technique of sponging paint onto the stamps to give the image more texture.

Switching to weather news: It's hot! Triple digit hot. These scraps on my cutting table remind me of the searing desert heat.

But the summer monsoon rains have begun, cooling us by about 20 degrees when they pass through. This is last night's sunset after a short rainfall.

Have a colorful day

Visiting the folks in LA

I just got back from visiting my parents in Los Angeles, where they are 92 and going strong in their own home. We went through boxes of old photos and found a few of them when they were dating more than 70 years ago!

Here they are swimming at Cape Cod, above, and in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, below. This was the summer after they graduated from college.

And here they are at a formal party at my dad's fraternity house at Penn State. My mom went to nursing school at Dusquene University in Pittsburgh.

The top photo is my mom (second from left) and her sister and brothers in their hometown of Pittsburgh in the '50s. I had no idea girls wore such short shorts then, but that was in a hot, humid Pittsburgh summer before AC.

And below is me with my brother and parents this week.

We found some really old family photos, including these two from my dad's side. Unfortunately, there were no dates and we don't know the story behind them.

The weather for my visit was beautiful, with highs only in the 70s. But I wasn't used to the high humidity after coming from single-digit humidity in Tucson.

They live on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, which has spectacular views of the ocean beyond rugged cliffs. I always take a long walk there.

Neighborhood walks are filled with flowers. All in all, it was a great visit.

Have a colorful day

Finally happy with the collage

 

I'm finally getting results I like for my collage that I'm entering into the "Dreams of the Land" challenge. I guess the third time really is a charm! (Read about my first two attempts here: having-trouble-with-collage.html)

This time I was very deliberate and thought about each step for awhile before carrying it out. I still might add a few more touches, and I'm definitely adding a border. But instead of quilting it I'm going to stretch it over a 16x20 frame.

We have to use at least three techniques for the challenge, so I've used painting, stamping, hand stitching, beading, colored pencils, photography (the hiker), and embellishment (the button face and feather).

Today I stamped a few gold spirals after deciding that the bottom needed something more. But I wanted them to be subtle, so I didn't completely cover the stamp with paint.

Then I added gold touches to some of my painted scraps, because you never know when you'll need glitzy fabric! You can apply the gold paint with a sponge ...

... or drag an old credit card or some other stiff card through the paint ...

... or use a styrofoam food tray to stamp subtle dots ...

... or use bubble wrap for bigger dots. You can get bolder dots by using an opaque paint and coating the bubble wrap with a thicker layer.

Here are some other scraps I played with.

My painting space is a mess, but I'm just going to leave everything out for the summer and pretend I'm at an art retreat. And I don't care that this is just inside my front door and is the first thing visitors see.

Have a colorful day

Summer memories

Summer is here!

Today's Summer Solstice marking the first official day of summer (and 108 degrees in Tucson) has me thinking about my childhood summers in a suburb of Pittsburgh. I don't have a lot of photos from back then, but here are a few.

 

With my brother in a pool we've obviously outgrown.

A picture I took of my younger brother and sisters cooling off with the hose. They're not smiling, so I think Kevin just got yelled at for blasting Terry.

Elementary school summers: free swimming lessons at the county pool, riding bikes, roller skating on our steep streets, exploring the woods and climbing trees, chasing fireflies, toasting marshmallows over our grill, playing tag and hide and seek after dark, running through yard sprinklers, no AC. 

My great aunt and uncle's cottage on their childhood farm, which we visited for a week or so each summer. They were brother and sister, neither one married, and lived in their family house in town but visited the farm in the summer. There was no running water, so we used an outhouse and hauled water from a cold spring. We helped my uncle pick fresh corn and beans, swung in the hammock, fished in the creek. I loved it! I was about 11 when I took this photo.

Junior high summers: walking through the huge county park (South Park) near my house with friends and waving to drivers to see how many would wave back, spending all day at the county pool and coming home with red eyes from the chlorine, playing board and card games on Patty's screened in porch, checking out summer reads at our tiny township library, baby sitting for a little cash. 

 

Me at a yearbook editors conference, summer of '72.

High school summers: working at Murphymart for more serious cash, yearbook meetings (I was the editor my senior year), drill team practice, dating, squeezing in time at the pool between working and school activities.

Sounds and scents: the sounds of water splashing, yard sprinklers, songs on transistor radios, crickets chirping, the scent of Coppertone suntan lotion, chlorine and freshly mowed grass.

What are some of your favorite memories? I'd love to see them in the comments!

How my Wisconsin grand dogs spend their summers:

Have a colorful day

Having trouble with a collage

The gallery where I sell my spirit dolls is having a mixed media show this year with the theme "Dreams of the Land." I love the theme, and my first thought was to do a collage using painted and stamped fabric, photo transfers and embroidery and beading. I would have a hiker gazing out over the desert whose sky was filled with petroglyph figures of past desert dwellers.

I got off to a good start with some fabric from my painted stash and a photo transfer of myself in my hiking gear gazing into the distance ...

... which I filled with stamped petroglyph figures and spirals using transparent and metallic fabric paints. 

I should have stopped there, but I thought it looked unfinished so I outlined each figure with a blue Pigma pen for more definition.

I still thought it looked unfinished, so I pulled out my Derwent watercolor pencils, which I probably haven't used in 10 years. It's been so long that I had to watch some Youtube tutorials on how to use them and activate them with water.

After I colored in each figure, I went over it with a brush dipped in water to make the colors bloom and become permanent.

I loved the effect of layering and blending different colors and had a lot of fun with it!

I let some of them fade into the background to add to the dreamy quality of the piece. Not outlining them with the Pigma pen would've made it even dreamier.

Then I fused the photocopy of myself onto the fabric and embroidered around it with a dusky purple wool thread. (I didn't have any good photos of a sitting hiker from the back, and it was too hot to take photos outside, so I took this sitting on my living room ottoman with a timer.)

I added the circular photograph of the desert to cover up an orange spiral that I had outlined with a gold marker that made the spiral too overpowering. I love the individual parts of the collage, but I don't love the final outcome. 

I think it's one hot mess!

So I put my hiker on another piece of painted fabric. Then I noticed a female figure formed by the painted lines and embroidered over her outline, thinking that would make it a "dreamy" collage. 

I had mixed feelings about the embroidered figure, but I went ahead and free-motion quilted the background, following the patterns made by the paint.

And it was another dud! 

I thought the embroidered figure looked hokey and not very good. But I like the colors, so I'll cut it up and make spirit dolls with it.

So, I'm starting a third one.  Here are my paints and stamps and I've printed some more photos on fabric (another technique I hadn't used in many years). Mercifully, these are small pieces, about 18 inches square, so I haven't wasted much fabric. I'm considering it a learning experience, although I do have the nagging feeling that I'm losing my touch.

Have a colorful day